CTO-as-a-Service in the United States

Bring an experienced CTO to your side without adding a full-time executive to payroll. Stralya’s CTO-as-a-Service gives you the strategic technical leadership, architecture decisions and delivery oversight you need to take critical web and ecommerce projects across the finish line – on time, on budget, and ready to scale in the cloud.

CTO-as-a-Service scope

What our CTO-as-a-Service covers in practice

Our CTO-as-a-Service is intentionally focused on what matters most for high-stakes digital projects: clear strategy, robust architecture, disciplined delivery and long-term maintainability. Below is an overview of what is typically included when you engage Stralya as your fractional or interim CTO in the US.

Core responsibilities and deliverables

Defining your technology vision and aligning it with business objectives and KPIs.
Designing cloud-native architectures on AWS, Azure or GCP tailored to your constraints.
Establishing security, compliance and data protection principles aligned with US market expectations.
Structuring engineering teams, roles, responsibilities and collaboration models.
Designing CI/CD pipelines, deployment strategies and rollback procedures.
Selecting and evaluating vendors, tools and platforms, including RFP preparation and review for partners such as shopify website designers or broader shopify web development services.
Auditing existing systems and projects to identify technical debt, risks and opportunities.
Leading project rescue missions for delayed, unstable or misaligned initiatives.
Creating clear, executive-level reporting on project status, risks and decisions.
Planning scalability, performance and cost optimization on the cloud.
Preparing your organization for the recruitment and onboarding of a permanent CTO or Head of Engineering.

Optional add-ons and extended support

Hands-on architecture implementation in collaboration with Stralya’s engineering team.
Fixed-price delivery of critical web applications or ecommerce platforms under our direct technical leadership.
Long-term maintenance and evolution SLAs for the platforms we help you design.
Technical due diligence for mergers, acquisitions or investment decisions.
Workshops and training sessions on cloud-native best practices for your internal teams.
Support in defining and tracking technical OKRs alongside your leadership team.
Every CTO-as-a-Service engagement is tailored to your context. We start from your strategic priorities, not from a predefined package. During our initial discussions, we work with you to define a clear, realistic scope that can be priced transparently and delivered with confidence.

Key benefits of CTO-as-a-Service with Stralya

Strategic clarity for leadership
Your executive team gains a clear, structured view of the technical landscape: what to build, what to buy, which risks to accept, and how technology supports your business model. Decisions stop being purely vendor-driven and become strategy-driven.
Senior expertise without full-time overhead
You access top-level CTO experience without committing to a permanent executive hire. This is ideal when you are scaling, testing new business models or consolidating your digital foundations before building a larger internal team, whether for custom platforms or for working effectively with best shopify website design services and shopify website design packages.
Structured, reliable project delivery
With a CTO who takes ownership of delivery standards, your projects benefit from realistic planning, disciplined execution and early risk detection. This reduces delays, rework and budget overruns, especially in multi-vendor environments that may include web agencies, shopify web developers and other specialized partners.
Stabilized and rescued initiatives
If your current initiative is underperforming, our CTO-as-a-Service can quickly stabilize it. We identify structural issues, reset expectations, redesign critical components where necessary and guide the project safely to production.
Future-proof, scalable foundations
By embedding cloud-native and quality-first principles from the start, we help you avoid fragile, short-term solutions. Your platforms are easier to evolve, integrate and scale as your organization grows across the US and globally.
A trusted partner, not just a vendor
We operate with transparency, rigor and long-term commitment. Our goal is to become the partner you call for your most strategic digital decisions, knowing that we will always prioritize reliability, quality and your organization’s best interest.

How our CTO-as-a-Service works

A controlled, transparent and outcome-driven engagement

Our CTO-as-a-Service is built for organizations that cannot afford uncertainty. Every engagement is structured, time-bound and aligned with clear strategic objectives. We combine advisory, hands-on architecture work and delivery oversight so your leadership team can make confident decisions and your engineering teams can execute with clarity.

You can engage us for a specific project, a transformation program or as an ongoing fractional CTO. In all cases, we operate with a project-first mindset: our mission is not to stay indefinitely, but to leave you with a solid technical foundation, clear processes and a roadmap that your teams – or your partners – can reliably follow.

We start with a focused discovery phase to understand your business model, current systems, team capabilities, constraints and objectives. For existing projects, we perform a technical and delivery audit to identify risks, gaps and quick wins. This gives us a clear picture of where you are and what is required to secure your roadmap.
Based on the assessment, we define a pragmatic technology strategy: target architecture, cloud approach, security and compliance considerations, integration patterns, and make-or-buy decisions. We document this in a clear, executive-friendly format so non-technical stakeholders can validate direction while engineers receive the detail they need to execute.
We design or refine your delivery model: team composition, roles and responsibilities, development workflow, code quality standards, testing strategy, CI/CD pipeline and release management. When needed, we help you select vendors or staff augmentation partners and ensure contracts and scopes are aligned with realistic outcomes.
During execution, we provide ongoing CTO oversight: architecture reviews, risk management, decision-making support, and direct collaboration with your engineering and product teams. We participate in key ceremonies, unblock complex issues and ensure that what is being built matches the agreed architecture and business priorities.
As your project stabilizes, we shift focus to optimization and long-term planning: performance improvements, scalability planning, cost optimization on the cloud, security hardening and future feature roadmap. We can remain as a fractional CTO or help you recruit and onboard a permanent technical leader when the time is right.

Popular Questions

Find Commonly Asked Questions

Our CTO-as-a-Service is designed for startups and scale-ups preparing for growth or funding, SMBs and large enterprises undergoing digital transformation, and public or semi-public entities with critical digital initiatives. It is particularly valuable when you lack a senior in-house CTO, when your current web or ecommerce project is delayed or unstable, or when you need independent technical leadership to align multiple vendors – including shopify website designers and other digital partners – around a single, coherent strategy.
Traditional consulting often ends with a slide deck. Our CTO-as-a-Service combines strategic advice with hands-on involvement and ownership of outcomes. We do not just recommend; we help design architectures, structure teams, select tools, review code-level decisions and oversee delivery. Our model is project-first and outcome-driven, with a clear commitment to seeing your initiative cross the finish line in a stable, scalable state.
Yes. One of Stralya’s key strengths is project rescue. We can step into an ongoing project, perform a rapid audit, stabilize the scope and architecture, renegotiate or clarify expectations with vendors, and establish a realistic plan to reach production. We focus on transparency and accountability, ensuring that every party understands their responsibilities and that leadership receives clear, regular reporting.
We favor fixed-price, clearly scoped engagements whenever possible. Typical models include a fixed-price discovery and strategy phase, followed by a monthly retainer for ongoing CTO involvement (for example, a set number of days per month), or a project-based package that covers both architecture and delivery oversight. We do not compete on being the cheapest option; we compete on reliability, clarity and long-term value for your organization.
Our core expertise is cloud-native web development and related architectures on AWS, Azure and GCP. This includes web platforms, internal business applications, APIs, integrations and data flows that need to be secure, scalable and maintainable. We frequently work alongside specialized partners offering shopify web development services, shopify website design services or broader shopify ecommerce development company capabilities. If your project is outside this scope, we can still advise at a high level and, when appropriate, recommend trusted partners with the right specialization.
Yes. As part of our CTO-as-a-Service, we can help you define technical roles, participate in interviews, assess candidates, and design an onboarding and mentoring plan. Our goal is to leave you with a stronger internal capability over time, whether that means hiring a permanent CTO, strengthening your engineering leadership, or upskilling your existing team with modern cloud-native practices and proven approaches to web and ecommerce delivery.

Case Studies

Real solutions Real impact.

These aren’t just polished visuals they’re real projects solving real problems. Each case study 
apply strategy, design, and development.

View Work

Building a Monolithic Headless CMS and Frontend with Next.js

A monolithic headless CMS, engineered with React and Next.js App Router to power high-performance websites, Shopify web development services, and product frontends fast, with clean content operations for non-technical teams.

6

weeks from first commit to a production-ready CMS core.

3x

faster time-to-market for new marketing and product pages.

View Project Details

View Work

Mandarin Learning Platform Project Takeover and Recovery

Taking over a third-party Mandarin e-learning platform to secure, stabilize and restructure critical cloud-native components for long-term growth.

6

weeks to stabilize and secure the core platform after takeover.

0

critical incidents in production after Stralya’s recovery phase.

View Project Details

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